What Disney Bought From FanLib

When Disney bought FanLib, what did it get, and what did it do with it?

The short answer: Disney got the servers and the software — everything but content — and launched Take180 the same month FanLib closed (August, 2008). But to understand the full story, such as why FanLib erased its fanfiction archive, you need background.

FanLib did not begin as a fanfiction archive. It was incorporated in 2003, when its founders developed proprietary crowdwriting software. They could have done all sorts of things with it; they elected to lease it for web-based marketing.

Between 2003-2007, FanLib was paid for conducting dozens of marketing campaigns, usually in the form of writing contests, which were hosted on FanLib's servers and used FanLib's software. IPs (intellectual property owners) could pay for a sub-domain, such as lword.fanlib.com, with FanLib doing the heavy lifting.

FanLib's proprietary software allowed fans to submit content, vote on content, and talk about it. Content solicited from fans was extremely limited in scope, fill in the blank type stuff, hence the name FanLib, as in Mad Libs; it's a common misconception that lib stood for library, and referred to the fanfiction archive.

Perhaps the most well-known campaign was paid for by The L Word. Fans submitted content for a tiny and irrelevant scene (a character's dream), and then fans voted for a winner, to be incorporated into a future episode.

By early 2007, FanLib may have been worrying about future income. As broadband increasingly replaced dial-up, IPs were attracting fans online by offering video content: previews, interviews, and eventually entire episodes; they weren't going to need FanLib to provide "more fun for fans." Rare in 2007, the number of TV shows viewed over the web soared into the billions in 2008.

In any case, it was in 2007 that FanLib added a multi-fandom fanfic archive (copying the fandom list in its entirety from fanfiction.net); it was assuredly thought a smart move in the circles the Williams brothers (Chris and David, FanLib's principal founders) moved in. They already had the domain, the servers, the software, and the employees. The worst possible outcome, as they probably saw it, would be a larger audience for their marketing campaigns — most ads on FanLib were for those campaigns, encouraging people to participate in useless contests paid for by Star Trek, The Ghost Whisperer, Battlestar Galactica, and so on; FanLib members were regularly spammed with the same. The best case would be increasing FanLib.com's traffic and earning big advertising bucks (which did not happen).

To fund the fanfiction archive expansion, FanLib received $3 million in venture capital — far more money than they needed, in the opinion of anyone who has operated an archive. Curiously, FanLib's two business branches, the fanfiction archive and the crowdwriting marketing campaigns, do not seem to have been separated financially, and had a shared budget. I base this on an anonymous FanLib source quoted by partly_bouncy, so judge its accuracy accordingly.

After the fanfiction archive was launched, Craig Singer, a member of FanLib's board of directors, began dabbling in "user generated" video content, no doubt having wet YouTube dreams, and made some sort of deal with massify.com. "In association with" FanLib, Singer solicited ideas for a horror "webfilm." This became Perkins' 14 — a movie which is missing, at the very least, someone familiar with the possessive form. FanLib added fanvid hosting in October, 2008.

Back to Disney. The mouse had no interest in FanLib's tiny and rarely visited fanfiction archive: they wanted the servers and the software. Before handing over the works, FanLib wiped it clean, erasing past marketing campaigns for HarperTeen, Star Trek, The L Word, Scholastic…everything, including the woebegone fanfiction archive.

Disney's Take180 is an awkward hybrid of FanLib's crowdwriting marketing campaigns and what Craig Singer has been up to at massify.com. As Take180 describes it:

"It's a community where people come together to make awesome web shows. You power the weekly episodes, by submitting stories, videos, photos, and artwork — and/or commenting and voting on other people's submissions. And hey — prizes happen."

It is exactly how FanLib's marketing campaigns operated, including the shabby prizes (at Take180, a prize can consist of a microscopically small trophy graphic a member may add to her profile).

Fanfiction isn't mentioned at Take180, although members submitting stories to be possibly incorporated into shows are writing fanfiction (futurefic!), whatever Disney chooses to call it. It is not far-fetched to conclude FanLib gave corporate-blessed fanfiction a bad name.

While I knew FanLib had obliterated the archive when they closed, I did not immediately notice they had also wiped out the marketing campaign content. When I noticed, I was baffled.

It was explained when I learned Disney had bought FanLib and turned it into Take180, but especially after ankaret spotted fanlib popping up in Take180 urls; FanLib trashed the archive and everything else because Disney got the FanLib software and the servers.

Anyone who has submitted fanfiction to an archive may be disgusted about FanLib killing the archive with only two weeks notice (July 24 - August 4, 2008). Did they need to kill it? No.

Even if the archive depended on the software sold to Disney (I believe the archive used a stripped down version), the archive could have been moved to new servers and a new platform. In 2007, FanLib created a script to steal import content from fanfiction.net (infamously asking people for their fanfiction.net passwords for "easy importing," until Xing Li blocked the script); they could have built a similar tool to export content.

Craig Singer is going full steam ahead with his new career, soliciting fans for ideas for movies, which he produces and profits from. I am not sure how Chris and David Williams are occupying themselves [edit: Chris Williams is the new CEO of Take180], although Chris has been making money on the online marketing speaker circuit for the last three years. I believe David Williams was the main developer of FanLib's software, and that it (the software, not the company) was wholly owned by David and Chris, not Singer and the other men who lent their names to FanLib's board of directors. If so, it was the Williams brothers who substantially profited from the sell-out to Disney — minus a cut taken by H.I.G. Ventures, which put up the $3 million. The price Disney paid is unknown, but I expect it will leak shortly, since Disney is a publicly traded company.

While I feel terrible for FanLib members who lost their stories, their forum posts, and their reviews, they should have expected things to end badly — for many reasons, but especially this one: in May, 2007, when FanLib began getting negative press, it immediately turned to destroying web content, particularly at my2centences.com, which was the portal for intellectual property owners looking into FanLib's marketing services.

This post drew on many sources; since May, 2007, I've read every article or editorial on FanLib I could find online, and I've posted in this community about any that were worthwhile. You can find them under the news tag; I list just a few here, those most relevant to this post. My occasional fuzziness on some topics (such as the business roles of Singer and the Williams brothers) is due to FanLib's love of destroying online material. Edit: I have dug up FanLib's original board biographies, and posted it.

You are welcome! I saw (elsewhere) comments such as "omg disney bought fanfic!" and wanted to clear things up -- at least as much as things can be cleared up, considering no one has made an official statement and I'm building this out of rumor and innuendo. :D

You do realize that Fanlib members had the option of downloading all of their fanfic and reviews that they received into a zip file, right? You skipped that part, and made it sound like members lost everything without any warning, and that's not quite true.

I only participated in two of the official contests. One was technically more of a drawing. For making a list of what I was going to do to get through the writer's strike, I won about $600 dollars in prizes. My daughter plays with the DS Lite that was part of that prize package and has been learning to draw with a book that was part of the prize.

As far as the importing script, I don't understand the implication that Fanlib 'stole' fanfic. When I imported my stories from FFN, I only took my own stories. The didn't belong to ffn, so how could they be stolen from them? Plus, it was great to get it all uploaded and ready to go with only a few clicks of the mouse. I do understand why ffn developed protection against that sort of thing, but I don't think what Fanlib did was wrong.

Anyway, the best thing about Fanlib was the forum, not the archive. If you never participated there, you missed out on some great people who actually read across fandoms, even ones they don't know. That was due to the member hosted contests. It was fun and easy to create contests, and it inspired members to read each others stories for the writing value, not just because it's a favorite ship. That is practically unheard of on any other fanfic archive.

I know I'll probably get all kinds of negative response to this because most people on LJ hated Fanlib. However, I was there almost from the beginning of the site and the people who ran it were nothing but helpful and quick to respond to questions and concerns. Some of us liked the site enough to create a multi-fandom archive called FanNation, that has a very similar forum. It's entirely fan-run, not corporate.

I agree with everything that maryilee states. My FanLib experience was nothing but positive. As much as I love the new FanNation site that was formed for us FanLib 'refugees', I still miss FanLib at times.

You do realize that Fanlib members had the option of downloading all of their fanfic and reviews that they received into a zip file, right?

I heard about that, yes. But two weeks is completely inadequate, no matter what tools were provided. Only members who logged on constantly would hear of it. How many of the 20,000 members knew in time? I would consider six months adequate.

It's typical for fan-run fanfiction sites to stay up for years even when the maintainers can no longer update them. An example is the Library of Moria, which was founded in 2002, and is still around today, although the fan founder could no longer maintain it after 2004. She found a handful of fans to keep it going. FanLib could have done the same.

I don't think what Fanlib did was wrong. [regarding asking for FFN passwords]

We disagree on that.

Anyway, the best thing about Fanlib was the forum, not the archive. If you never participated there, you missed out on some great people who actually read across fandoms, even ones they don't know.

I may have failed to make it clear in my post, but I consider the obliteration of the forum one of FanLib's worst crimes. When FanLib closed, members who visited this community were unanimous on that being the greatest loss.

It was fun and easy to create contests, and it inspired members to read each others stories for the writing value, not just because it's a favorite ship. That is practically unheard of on any other fanfic archive.

FanLib wasn't unique in multi-fandom squee. Have you heard of Yuletide (http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/)? It is one of many sites which promote multi-fannishness, with a couple of thousand fandoms represented. Fanfic writers are invited to fill requests, their reward the gratitude of the recipient. No cash or prizes, but thousands of people have participated since the site was founded a few years ago. People take great pride and delight in writing, reading, and recommending new fandoms. An amazing fanvid (http://thingswithwings.livejournal.com/48583.html) was created to celebrate this, with clips from 191 shows and films.

I know I'll probably get all kinds of negative response to this because most people on LJ hated Fanlib.

You may get negative responses, but I don't believe it will be because "most people on LJ hated FanLib." Many people not on LJ hated FanLib, and LJ members are far from homogenous. There are people like me, for instance, who stopped posting fanfic here in June, 2007, because of LJ's terrible customer service and policies. I'm at insanejournal now, and a member of the Archive Of Our Own (http://archiveofourown.org/). The Archive is completely fan built and supported, and is being beta-tested by volunteers not receiving a dime.

You may, however, get negative responses because of statements such as "For making a list of what I was going to do to get through the writer's strike, I won about $600 dollars in prizes." It's impossible for me to take the positive things you say about FanLib at face value because you were financially compensated for participating in the site; that's my prejudice, and it has nothing to do with how I feel about FanLib. I'd have the same reservation if you told me Pepsi was great after Pepsi gave you $600.

I don't know your relationship with FanNation, but I'd appreciate it if you would pass this along: I invite its members and founders to post here to promote it. After FanLib closed, I updated the userinfo page for life_wo_fanlib to make it clear this comm can be used by FanLib members trying to stay in touch.

I'm not talking about archives that are multi-fandom, I'm talking about people actively reading outside their fandoms. Now, maybe it is common in Yuletide, but it wasn't my experience in my only Yuletide participation.

I participated in Yuletide this year. While fun, it's not quite the same. I didn't see people reading stories where they knew nothing about the fandom. At least, my stories only received comments where it was apparent that the reader was a fan of the show. I did read a few I'm not so familiar with, but there were so many in such a short time, it was overwhelming. On Fanlib, it was normal to receive feedback from people who only had a vague idea about the fandom. We learned about them and became fans via the fanfic we read there.

As far as receiving a prize and thus making my opinion invalid, people can decide what they want. I was not a mod there. I was just a regular person who was active on the site. I was a member for 8 months before I received the prize and remained a member until it closed, about 8 months later. A good friend was just as happy with the site despite never winning any prizes.

FanNation has sought to bring the spirit of the Fanlib forums back. It's much smaller than Fanlib, of course, but it's growing every day. The forums are almost an exact duplicate of Fanlib forums in terms of how it is set up and the board catagories. I am a moderator there, just to be upfront.

"I don't know your relationship with FanNation, but I'd appreciate it if you would pass this along: I invite its members and founders to post here to promote it. After FanLib closed, I updated the userinfo page for life_wo_fanlib to make it clear this comm can be used by FanLib members trying to stay in touch."

I just wanted to first thank you for your open-mindedness towards FanNation and furthermore just identify myself as one of its founders. I posted some comments regarding FanLib and Take180 on one of the other entries, here, but as an anonymous user (I finally gave in and made myself an account to string my replies together under one name, lol).

I would say more about FanNation, but I really think Mary has it covered :)